On the metal frame over the Mister’s bed, there is a gecko mounted on a magnet. You would guess this chunk of chartreuse plastic with bittersweet sparkly eyes cost, oh, a buck twenty-nine at Hilo Hattie’s. Its purpose was to adorn a fridge back home on the mainland for a pleasant memory whenever anyone needed the no-fat cottage cheese. But its destiny has been to live its days with the Mister at his nursing home.

Aides, stretching to organize sheets or take a blood draw occasionally glance up and see the gecko. It startles them and, if they have the time, they ask about it. Here is its story.

We were in a lush resort on the big island, a paradise north of Kona. Our room was a retreat perfect for a couple of recluses, with a balcony overlooking the ocean.

In all this luxury, it was a surprise when, reading in bed, I saw a flutter of motion on the ceiling above me. As a long term sufferer of arachnophobia, I launched myself upright in a magnificent surge, slapping the nightstand in search of my glasses while making little hiccupy noises: oxygen depletion can cause failed screams.

The Mister calmly put down his book and asked if there was a problem. On closer examination, it was clear our intruder was not an eight-legged terrorist with a grudge. It was a tiny, tiny gecko. When my heart stopped racing, it actually went out to the little fella.

“It’s cute.”

“It’s just a gecko. Come back to bed.”

“But it can’t get out. It can’t eat. It can’t drink. The maid will turn it in. The bellboy will kill it.”

“No, no, no, yes and yes.”

“We must free it!” The opening strains of Born Free swelled in my head.

“Free it?”

“Yes! To the flower box on the balcony!” Give it liberty or give it death! Generations of geckoes would live to tell the tale.

Thus began the great gecko capture caper. Around and around it skittered where the ceiling meets the wall. Only exhaustion – or curiosity – finally brought it within range of me, stacked on the rattan chair, stacked on the desk, with the Mister hanging on to my legs lest I topple. Anyone viewing from the beach below would have written it off as one of your stranger sex acts.

At last, I succeeded in clapping a drinking glass over the terrified little creature. In delirium reminiscent of Olympic glory, I took a lap around the room, then we opened the patio door and released the beast into the flower box. I drifted off that night, sleeping the sleep of the truly just.

The next day, in passing, we mentioned the gecko at the front desk.

“Oh, yes,” said the receptionist. “They live on the ceilings, eating the insects that find their way in. Some guests try to put them outside. But then the birds just eat them.”

Not often do you get to give one of God’s creatures liberty AND death on the same day.

That Hawaiian vacation was the last trip we ever took together. But for fourteen months in a nursing home, a plastic gecko has been a sweet memory for a love affair that’s still crazy after all these years.